The city of London's financial district is seen from Primrose Hill as high air pollution obscures the skyline over London on April 10, 2015. (Reuters)

Only 13 countries and territories had "healthy" air quality last year, according to a new report, surging alarming levels of air pollution in 2022.

The report by IQAir, a company that tracks air quality worldwide, found that 90% of the countries and territories which were analyzed exceeded the air quality guidelines set by the World Health Organization; the guideline was set to aid governments craft regulations and to protect public health.

Upon analyzing the average air quality from 131 countries and territories, IQAir found that only six countries and seven territories met the WHO air quality guidelines. The countries were found to be Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand. The territories in the Pacific and Caribbean included Guam and Puerto Rico.

Seven countries showed to have poor air quality that far exceeded WHO guidelines. The countries are Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Kuwait, and India.

The study focused on finding a particulate matter, PM2.5, the tiniest pollutant, yet the most dangerous. PM2.5 travels deep into lung tissues where it can enter the bloodstream when inhaled.

Tightening guidelines

Back in September 2021, WHO tightened its annual air pollution guidelines by cutting a big amount of fine particulate matter from 10 to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.

Almost 4.2 million premature deaths were associated with fine particulate matter in 2016, according to the UN agency. Had the latest tightening of annual air pollution guidelines taken place earlier, WHO found that almost 3.3 million would have survived the pollution-related deaths.

The report also highlights the lack of monitoring stations in developing countries in Africa, South America, and the Middle East; this results in a dearth of air quality data in these specific regions.

Despite improvements being witnessed in Africa compared to that of 2021, the continent still largely remains underrepresented as only 19 out of 54 African countries had sufficient data available from their monitoring stations.

CEO of IQAir North America, Glory Dolphin Hammes, stated that every time it adds a new country that once lacked air quality data, the country eventually winds up at the top of the most-polluted list.

“If you look at what’s called satellite or modeled data, Africa is supposed to be probably the most polluted continent on the planet, but we don’t have enough data,” Hammes told CNN. “What that means is there’s a whole lot more data that are needed in order for us to truly determine what are the most polluted countries and cities in the world.”

Hammes emphasized that governments are investing in instruments that fail to accurately measure fine particulate matter in the air.